Wings in the Dark

Chapter 18: The Path to Somewhere

*Reader's POV*

Your appearance around Headquarters was brief, making a point to simply hit some of the necessary locations of your daily routine, making sure you were seen at them. You tended to your little garden, went out to the stables to take care of Zephyr and sneak Levi's horse a treat, and took your sweet time to the mess hall kitchen to get a pot of black tea started for Levi. You checked your special book about plants and their different health effects beforehand to try and find one to help with Levi's current...status...and ironically, his favorite black tea was known for cardiovascular health and improved circulation. You wondered if he was aware his favorite tea improved blood and heart health. He probably did, with how much of a tea enthusiast he seemed to be. But, since it was his usual tea, maybe he wouldn't notice the subtle gesture it actually was: an attempt to help him recover faster.

You were still in a strange sort of high after feeding from him. You felt tingly in your blood, energized and strong, alert. It was also a little disorienting because your senses felt sharper. You weren't used to this much coming in at you at once. Sounds, smells, and sights were sharper, almost too sharp. It was like when you were a brand new vampire with senses that you didn't know how to handle. At least this time you knew from your first trial by fire how to adjust. There was a lot of focusing on one sight, one sound, one smell, blocking out the noise with some difficulty and adjusting to the stronger sense of clarity of the individual senses before moving on to taking in more, little at a time.

The other thing you were worried about was the fact you could still taste it, in your head at least. And even in the stables far away from where Levi currently was, you wanted more. Yes, you'd scoffed at his question about you getting addicted to his blood, but really, you were a little worried if it was still this prominent in your mind, well fed and away from him you still had the lingering taste, a desire for more. Hell, part of the reason you were able to let go and stop in the first place had been because you told yourself you could continue to taste it in the future if you pulled away in that moment. You'd wanted to keep going, to take every last drop, your vampiric nature overcoming everything else, but you'd held it at bay thanks to Levi's actions causing some of your predator instincts to calm down and drawing your conscious attention to him, his actions and his words. You'd had to tell yourself you could taste this rich and empowering blood regularly if you pulled away now, instead of gorging yourself once and never being able to do so again.

You were ashamed that what got you to pull away had nothing to do about feelings or relationships or actually caring about Levi, but at that moment you'd been running off pure, brutal instincts, and emotions weren't going to be enough to get you to pull away in that moment. It had to be cold logic that got you to pull away in the moment. The part where emotions came into play came later, when your teeth were no longer in his neck and you were talking to yourself to keep yourself from sinking them into him again even though his throat was inches from your face.

Fuck, you were struggling with this, even now the scent and taste was rushing in your mind, making your teeth ache. You didn't need it, you felt more satiated than you'd been in forty years, but you wanted it. Badly.

You needed to tell him. While you two were talking about all this, you needed to bring it up. Maybe he would feel weird about it, maybe it would make him back out knowing how dangerous it was to keep dangling himself in front of you, but he needed to know.

It also meant that you made him black tea spiked with white sage. The sooner he got white sage back into his system, the better. And the more at ease you would feel because there would be a deterrent keeping you away from his blood again.

It was evening by the time you had finished your rounds and were returning to Levi's office with black tea in hand, feeling that a couple hours walking around being seen and doing things was plenty of time to calm any suspicions that might have been roused by your absence. You'd wanted to come back sooner, since you'd left Levi with some significant blood loss but also got the sense he needed some time to himself to think after what happened. You were still shocked that he'd gone through with it in the first place, with how afraid he'd been. Neither of you had said anything, but you could hear how fast his heart was beating, and could see the look in his eyes. He'd been afraid, but he'd offered and gone through with it anyway. Which meant a lot, but at the same time, you were worried about him. It hadn't been the best first experience for a willing participant, and it had been a little rushed, and you'd been starving, but...still. You'd rather it hadn't been so painful.